"Shadow Selves" :: 16x20" acrylic and pastel on canvas paper. © 2009 Pia f. Walker

Wimpy, full of pink, and lacking in character is exactly how this canvas art piece started. There is a beautiful magazine clipping that I’ve had for years – tropical pink background, soft creamy pink bowl, filled with exotic purple, pink, and yellow flowers. That was the inspiration, the starting point for this mixed media canvas. Yet my weakness in paint, and in knowing exactly what to do with a brush, made for a boring start.

I placed this canvas aside and continued painting. After several tries at maneuvering the brush and seeing it simply wipe paint on the canvas, I gave up and looked towards a pile of recycled, heavy stock cut papers that were remnants from my greeting cards. I’m not sure what gave me the idea or inclination to use that as my paint applicator, but off I went. I immediately loved the spackle effect, the vibrancy that remained in the paint and therefore on the canvas.

After finishing off a dozen or so other canvas I returned to this heavily pink piece. I tried again, placing heavy reds and burgundies on the painting, mixing them sparingly with white and a dusky yellow. I played too much, perhaps, but I found myself looking down at a canvas filled with life, a sunrise of colors awaiting to explode. Never had I worked on a color so daring and I wondered how the pastels would be able to match, or play off, the intense colors and texture.

Slowly, the idea of a woman attempting to stand against the colors crept into my sketches. I’m not sure if she is overwhelmed by the colors, by the vibrancy of life and a new day. I’m not sure if she is strong enough to tackle that much passion and life. But her shadow is. Albeit a less colorful character in this drawing, she is the backbone, the crutch helping the main figurine stand up to life, to challenges and adventures.

Sometimes we find ourselves as mere shadows of who we once were, a percentage point of what we were born with, of the character that we developed and believed in. Whatever the fear, the desperation, the compromise, I hope that your shadow self is holding you up, even as your knees buckle. And I hope that some day, you may find her again and become complete.

Pia